One of the most devastating civil war of history,the American Civil War of 1861-1865. To what real purpose this cruel war ever started in the first place?

Even in our modern days it is still considered a controversial and delicate subject. But it did happen and left more then a million casualties and almost as much dead and still a country divided by its aftermath.

I'm calling on my fellow americans members and others as well that have opinions and knowledge about this formidable war, to discuss and share the real reasons behind why it all started in the first place.

LOA

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"Few men are brave:many become so through training and discipline."Flavius Vegetius Renatus

"I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strenght to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles."Christopher Reeve

I'm under the impression it started over disagreements of how the nation should be run. Slavery during the Civil War I see much like looking for WMDs in Iraq... A political toy to get people's minds off the real reason for the fight, and an element that has little to nothing to do with the real conflict.

I'm under the impression it started over disagreements of how the nation should be run. Slavery during the Civil War I see much like looking for WMDs in Iraq... A political toy to get people's minds off the real reason for the fight, and an element that has little to nothing to do with the real conflict.

The War started in April 1861 and the underlying cause was how the country was to be run. As I said Slavery didn't become an issue until Sept. 1862 with the Emancipation Proclamation which in itself was an act of deperation as the North was loosing and it only freed slaves in those States that were not in Rebellion. It was a clash of cultures, Industrial in the North, Agrarian in the South.

I think that their is a lot of controversy over the real reasons that started this abominable war.

In some history books or archives it may say that is was an issue on how the countrie should be governed and some would say it was about diseagrement over slavery.This paragraph on the origins of the Civil War states that is was about slavery.

Origins of the American Civil War

The main explanation for the origins of the American Civil War was slavery, especially the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories. States' rights and the tariff issue became entangled in the slavery issue, and were intensified by it. Other important factors were party politics, expansionism, sectionalism, economics and modernization in the Antebellum Period.

The United States was a nation divided into two distinct regions separated by the Mason-Dixon line. New England, the Northeast and the Midwest had a rapidly growing economy based on family farms, industry, mining, commerce and transportation, with a large and rapidly growing urban population and no slavery outside the border states. Its growth was fed by a high birth rate and large numbers of European immigrants, especially Irish, British, German, Polish and Scandinavian.

The South was dominated by a settled plantation system based on slavery, with rapid growth taking place in the Southwest, such as Texas, based on high birth rates and low immigration from Europe. There were few cities or towns, and little manufacturing except in border areas. Slave owners controlled politics and economics. Two-thirds of the Southern whites owned no slaves and usually were engaged in subsistence agriculture, but support for slavery came from all segments of southern society.

And this article talks about the political parties and their view on slavery and power.

Causes of the war

The coexistence of a slave-owning South with an increasingly anti-slavery North made conflict inevitable. Lincoln did not propose federal laws against slavery where it already existed, but he had, in his 1858 House Divided Speech, expressed a desire to "arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction". Much of the political battle in the 1850s focused on the expansion of slavery into the newly created territories.All of the organized territories were likely to become free-soil states, which increased the Southern movement toward secession. Both North and South assumed that if slavery could not expand it would wither and die.

Southern fears of losing control of the federal government to antislavery forces, and Northern fears that the slave power already controlled the government, brought the crisis to a head in the late 1850s. Sectional disagreements over the morality of slavery, the scope of democracy and the economic merits of free labor vs. slave plantations caused the Whig and "Know-Nothing" parties to collapse, and new ones to arise (the Free Soil Party in 1848, the Republicans in 1854, the Constitutional Union in 1860). In 1860, the last remaining national political party, the Democratic Party, split along sectional lines.

So,here we have an exemple of diversity over the reasons that started it, though when one reads between the lines it comes down to slavery.

The underlying cause of the Civil war was who was going to Govern the country and how that would be accomplished. The South saw it as fighting for a way of life that was slowly dying as was slavery. The South saw itself as the last bastion of Chivalry and Gentille Society and saw the North as a big brawling bully and they wanted no part of that.

There had been an uneasy agreement in the legislature over slavery throughout the nation. With Lincolns election the legislative mix changed enough to prevent the "spread" of slavery in the South West. There were few slaves in the North and many in the South. The south felt their "states rights" were being infringed upon and they withdrew from the union.

My family had settled in Va. and split over the war. We moved North and we changed the spelling of our name. Relatives fought on both sides. My Grandfather felt Abraham Lincoln was the greatest man in the history of the country. His father and some of his Uncles fought for the north.

I agree and my grandfather would have been happy to find you in agreement. Our family, to my best knowledge, never had the financial ability or the desire to own slaves so that was not an issue with us. It was all states rights and the constitution. I do not know how accurate it was but the History Channel did a program that allegedly proved that two fences at Gettysburg probably cost Gen. Lee the war. Old burial maps show where the confederates fell and were buried. Picketts Charge was slowed by fences on either side of a road 200 yards from the Union lines. Over 400 died at the fences and many more would have been incapacitated. A small number actually penetrated union lines but were captured. Gettysburg was the beginning of the end for Lee's armies.

It is amazing how some insignificant thing can change the course of history!

Yes the fences slowed and disrupted Pickets men plus the Yankees had the stone wall just as the Rebs did at Fredrickburg. Also Lee overconfidence played a part. By Gettysburg he was convinced that "HIs Boys" could accomplish anything.

Patch. True. But we jump ahead of ourselves and we should go back two years to April 12th 1861 and the first Battle of the War, Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour.

The opening shots of the War were fired there and it was the first defeat of the Union. Few knew that the war would last 4 years and cost 650,000 American dead and the complete defeat of the Confederacy. It was truly a war of Brother against Brother for in all to many cases it tore families apart. One side for the Union and the other the Confederacy. I have often wondered how many Brothers actually killed their Brother without knowing.How many Fathers killed Sons? How many Families were torn apart never to rejoin? It was and is the most tragic part of your History.